Much of it had been overgrown and unusable, not to say unsafe with the smashed glass of the greenhouse and tumblingdown sheds. But gradually over time Naomi took it in hand and turned it into a garden that was her sanctuary as well as somewhere for the children to play, when they weren’t on the beach.

Through her love of gardening, Naomi also developed another passion, for collecting old gardening tools and equipment. She used to scour auctions and charity and second-hand shops for bits and pieces – old terracotta pots, galvanised watering cans and laundry tubs, wooden-handled tools, wicker baskets and trugs, stone troughs and urns, and old ornate wirework tables and chairs.

At first, she bought specifically for her own garden, but then, after amassing far more than she needed, or had room for, she decided to make a business out of it and rented a small shop in the village that had become available.

She called it All Things Gardenalia and oh, how she had loved that little shop. With the fashion for recycling and anything remotely vintage, she did surprisingly well and was constantly having to source new stock.

It had been a sad day when she’d taken the reluctant decision to close the shop because of the coronavirus crisis that had so devastated the world. She had sold some of the remaining stock online, but a lot of it still remained in the garage. One day she would get around to having a sort out and sell what she had left.

Colin would be appalled to see the state his once tidy garage was in now. It had always been his domain, where he had religiously put away their cars to spare them from the peril of being exposed to the salty air. Naomi was not so particular about such things and regularly left her car out to fend for itself.

‘Standards have been allowed to slip,’ she could imagine Colin saying.

More than two years on since his death and she could still hear his voice as clear as if he were right next to her.

She supposed she always would.

They had been out for dinner with friends in Chichester when he died. They’d been celebrating his sixty-sixth birthday, and when it was over, when they were putting on their coats, Colin had looked at her with a strange puzzled look on his face as though he’d suddenly remembered something important to ask her. Then thumping a hand to his chest, he’d closed his eyes with a grimace and gasped.

A big man – a bear of a man was the way he was often described – there had been no way of catching him, and he’d slammed against the table at which they’d just eaten, tipping it over on top of him as he dropped heavily to the floor.

The memory of Colin lying there amongst the debris of their empty wineglasses and coffee cups haunted her for months afterwards. It was such an undignified end to a man’s life.